WITH AN ever-worsening skills shortage and a lack of meaningful interventions in place, Australian HR professionals will have to focus on talent management and skills auditing in order to ensure their organisations are capably equipped to deal with the issues facing them, according to business commentator Robert Gottliebsen
WITH AN ever-worsening skills shortage and a lack of meaningful interventions in place, Australian HR professionals will have to focus on talent management and skills auditing in order to ensure their organisations are capably equipped to deal with the issues facing them, according to business commentator Robert Gottliebsen.
Speaking at a recent Robert Half International breakfast, held in conjunction with CareerOne, Gottliebsen said that while Australia is enjoying its longest employment growth period in recent history, the nation is also undergoing a skills shortage crisis stretching from skilled labourers to highly trained accountants, caused by a number of factors.
On top of this, Australia is facing a ‘double whammy’in that its immigration laws do not encourage skilled workers from overseas to come and work on Australian shores.
To address this crisis, Gottliebsen said companies must first seek to understand the problem in the context of their own organisation and suggested undertaking a skills audit to identify where the shortages are and then how to address them.
Gottliebsen also urged HR and line managers not to avoid the issue of retirement with older members of their workforce and instead work out together how best to use their skills, prolonging retirement where necessary.
He warned against a retrenchment culture, which had gripped Australian corporates for the past six to seven years, has been a contributing factor to the current skills shortage dilemma.
The dilemma was further compounded by a lack of understanding in both business and government. While HR had a better grasp of the issue, many CEOs and most of the Howard Government had “no idea” about the extent of skill shortages.
“The Federal Government has recognised the demand for accountants by putting them back onto the Migration Occupations in Demand List, but how can a skilled worker be of value if he is only allowed to reside with a company for a three month period unless sponsored? At the same time we are turning away hundreds of foreign fee-paying students the moment they graduate,” Gottliebsen said.
Gottliebsen said past mistakes around neglecting to train skilled workers must change, and highlighted the fact that Australia can’t offer younger workers globally competitive salaries and an easy step onto the property market, unlike the UK and other countries competing in the war for global talent.
“Australian companies should instead focus on what Australia can offer in terms of lifestyle choice, when attracting overseas talent here or luring young Australian workers back home,” he said.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) recently expressed concern over a draft Productivity Commission report on national competition policy, which concluded that skill shortages do not necessarily require specific remedial action by governments.
The ACCI was “very concerned” that this finding may mean that governments do not focus on addressing the problem, and also noted that the report didn’t take account of the full range of barriers to competition in the National Training System (NTS).
A recent survey of investor confidence found that skill shortages were seen as the second highest constraint on business investment into the future, behind government charges and taxes.
In a sign that the skills shortage is growing increasingly global, the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) recently said that the UK job market is now at a virtual standstill due to a combination of weaker demand for staff and limited supply of available workers.
“A smaller active labour pool could itself help explain why employment has been growing more slowly if employers are struggling to find staff,” said CIPD chief economist John Philpott.
“Where this occurs, part of the demand for labour manifests itself in a higher stock of vacancies rather than higher employment, which is precisely what has been happening of late.”
